


pictures of us

by zenstrike



Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Canonical Character Death, F/M, ambiguous final decision
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-06
Updated: 2017-06-06
Packaged: 2018-11-09 20:27:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11112222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zenstrike/pseuds/zenstrike
Summary: It is a good picture, she insists to herself. They just might need to take another one.Written for Mass Effect Relationship Week: pictures of you.





	pictures of us

**Author's Note:**

> i really don’t know what i am doing ok i just think sometimes about struggling shepard throwing herself against a wall until she breaks even if she doesn’t want to

It's not a bad picture. Sure, it's crowded and messy and a clusterfuck of people and faces. It gives her a headache when she looks at it. She's not even looking at the camera in it. But it's not a bad picture. It might even be a good one, good enough to carry with her if she had the presence of mind to think about it. There isn't room enough for much in her head, these days. The extra space Cerberus had afforded her has been completely consumed by the war effort, by the ceaseless loss of life she confronts in every fight, in every decision, in every twitch of her trigger finger. The war is eating away at her.

But she has this. Memory. Fresh, still, but it seems far away already. It sits on the corner of her desk and all of them look up at her--or, most of them. Garrus laughs the first time he sees it, and his laughter chips away at some of the tension that accompanies them to Chronos Station.

"Shepard," he scoffs and she smiles. "Couldn't take your eyes off me for one minute? Just for one good picture?"

She brushes just the tips of her fingers over his scars and thinks that they match in ways that biology could never have predicted. And then she starts to laugh at herself and hides it with a hoarse, coughing breath. She pulls her hand away.

"It is a good picture," she corrects, and sniffs for effect.

"It could have been a great picture," he chides, and he leans close, leaves her the space she needs to meet him partway.

Her smile grows. "It _has_ been great.”

"Hey," he warns.

Shepard just grins, and then they sigh together, and he insists she get some rest and she regrets that almost immediately.

An end approaches, and before she can leave the frame on her desk flickers into life and the faces of her friends and comrades gaze long and deep at her. She looks down at them and stretches the stiffness from her hands. She considers each face in turn. Then, she lifts the frame and sets it next to the chittering hamster cage.

Her hamster slips out to bid her farewell and Shepard is overcome with a moment of ridiculousness, but she leaves her cabin with renewed purpose.

"Traynor!" she calls with good cheer. "If anything happens to me, feed my hamster!"

"No, Commander," Traynor replies with an equal amount of cheer.

She just can't shake the feeling that she should have looked at the camera.

She thinks this as they finally tear Cerberus down from within.

She thinks this on Earth, surrounded by light and screams.

She thinks this as her squad settles into a familiar routine: wrestle with the sense of impending doom.

_It is a good picture_ , she insists to herself. They just might need to take another one.

Don't die, she thinks and hugs Kaidan with a ferocity that surprises them both.

Don't die, she thinks and squeezes Liara's hands and surrenders the closest thing to mentorship she can give to James in the split second they suddenly have.

Don't die, she thinks and imagines Tali building a life and a thousand homes.

Don't die, she thinks and struggles to express her pride to EDI, her gratitude to Javik.

"Come back alive," Garrus tells her and she thinks that sounds so much better.

None of it matters in the flickering light of the Catalyst, with the enormity of this final choice ahead of her. Despair has come and gone. Now, she has only resolve and regret.

She is glad she has said her goodbyes.

* * *

 

Alone in her cabin, he tidies. He straightens things to memory. He thinks about how upset she'll be when she sees the damaged models, and then how surprised she'll be that her cabin stayed as steady as it did during their--escape, he supposes that's what it was. He takes the frame from the shelf, ignores it when it flashes at him, and sets it facedown on the desk.

"Garrus," Liara says from the door. "You should be resting."

"I'm fine," he says. And disappointment makes him a liar.

 

 


End file.
